Obesity is a major health problem in the United States and other countries. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994) reported that approximately 20-25% of Americans are obese, while another study estimated the percentage of overweight Americans to be between 60% and 65% (Flegal K M, Carroll M D, Ogden C L, Johnson C L “Prevalence and trends in obesity among US adults, 1999-2000” JAMA 2002; 288:1723-1727). Obesity can cause numerous health problems, including diabetes, degenerative joint disease, hypertension, and heart disease. Weight reduction can be achieved by increased caloric expenditure through exercise and/or by reduced caloric consumption through diet. However, in most cases, weight gain often recurs and improvements in related co-morbidities are often not sustained.
Surgical procedures present an increasingly common solution for obese patients. Surgical procedures include, for example, stapled gastroplasty, banded gastroplasty, gastric banding, gastric bypass surgery, and bilopancreatic bypass. However, these surgical procedures are invasive, risky and expensive to perform, and many patients regain a substantial portion of the lost weight.
The use of a gastrostomy to drain a portion of ingested food is an alternative to these procedures for weight loss management. Upon installation, one end of the gastrostomy tube will reside within the stomach with the other end passing through the abdominal wall outside of the body. A low-profile valve which rests against the surface of the skin of the abdomen is typically fitted to the external end of the gastrostomy tube to prevent the inadvertent discharge of the contents of the stomach and to prevent inadvertent pulling of the tube inside the stomach.
Typically a fluid, such as water is infused into the stomach to improve the flow of partially digested material out of the stomach through the gastrostomy tube. While a simple drain tube may be connected to the external end of the gastrostomy tube to partially drain the contents of the stomach after a meal therefore reducing the amount of food which is digested, in practice, this simple approach is unsatisfactory. Often, less than the desired portion of the ingested food can be drained before the gastrostomy tube clogs with partially digested food. In practice, a fluid, typically water, is infused through the discharge end of the gastrostomy tube to clear any clogs and further dilute the contents of the stomach so that additional partially digested food may be drained.
Various devices have been used to allow the user to alternately switch between draining the stomach, unclogging the gastrostomy tube, or diluting the contents of the stomach more quickly and efficiently without disconnecting the drain tube. However, the devices described in prior art for draining material from the stomach and infusing fluid into the stomach allow the drained material from the stomach to pass directly through the apparatus. This makes it difficult to thoroughly clean the malodorous stomach discharge from the apparatus. It also makes it difficult to visually identify a clog within the apparatus itself. Additionally, it is desirable that the process of clearing a clogged gastrostomy tube and diluting the partially digested food can be performed quickly with little physical exertion. The present invention is directed to overcoming some of these deficiencies.